


2 "Children" Filling Up the Silence

by stovvie



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Bad Ending, Fluff and Angst, Komaeda Nagito As The Servant, Malnutrition, Platonic Cuddling, Sad Ending, Survival, Tags Are Hard, The Biggest Most Awful Most Tragic Event in Human History (Dangan Ronpa), komaeda being dad in denial, livin in the apocalypse, trying and failing to put my ideas into words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:14:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27081007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stovvie/pseuds/stovvie
Summary: "Dinner is onion slices, some leaves he ripped off of a tree that didn’t look like a deceased raisin, tree bark strips, and two pieces of some sort of jerky. Oh, and half a cockroach, which the child is currently chewing on right now."During the apocalypse, Komaeda finds a child on the way to Towa City, and decides to take them under his wing.He forgets to not get attached. He forgets lots of things nowadays.
Relationships: Hinata Hajime/Komaeda Nagito (implied)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 52





	2 "Children" Filling Up the Silence

He found them in a quieter part of the city. Quiet, as in a dead, heavy, oppressing silence hung in the air and dripped down his back like sticky rice porridge. Not like the big cities, where Destruction and Death had field days, filled with occasional screams of terror or insanity, explosions, mechanical-  
“Upupupupu-!”  
-laughter screeching out of the Monokumas that trot around flashing their “knives”. It all screamed out a cacophony of Despair.

Here, however, it just seemed…hollow. Like the town’s very existence was miserable. Even those who had lost their minds to the emptiness and starvation had become void themselves. Everyone else survived in groups of one. It wasn’t completely desolate, but the rubble and ruins and rubbish and remains weren’t very loud either. He could probably climb on top of them and not have to worry about anything.

In theory, heaven.

In reality, it made him idly swing his chain and slightly drag his feet as he walked.

The foundations of torn down homes squatted like smushed cake boxes next to what used to be called a “forest”. Shops were gutted for supplies and left to crumble under the blazing sun and air-that-may-or-may-not-be-slightly-radioactive-slash-poisonous-? In earlier times, some unfortunate people tried to find shelter in those quaint stores, only to wake up and find that their possessions were stolen, or half the ceiling had fallen down and impaled them, or their flesh was being stripped for food, or their entire body was rigged with rats and parasites, or-

All in all, it was never a very pretty sight, so he usually avoided going into those places unless absolutely necessary, in which case he would be paying a trip to old pharmacies or drugstores. Although, what didn’t help was that most of the bodies were _in_ pharmacies and drugstores.

He was currently walking by an old, cracked fountain that had long stopped spewing water in pretty shapes. On one of the benches in front of the fountain, two men were tied together with ribbon, fingernails and hair mostly ripped off, tongues ripped out, and eyelids cut off so their dead, unblinking eyes would stare blankly at you.

_I like fountains._

…

_Well at least, I **think** I used to like fountains._

He sort of remembers a white fountain, with curtains of liquid glass shimmering with reflections of rainbows that spilled out of bone china bowls. He was there with someone he…

_…Loved? Hated?_

He probably felt…happy. When he was there. Although, he can’t really tell the difference between happiness, hope, despair, and love anymore.

_(Who do I both love and hate?)_

…

…

_(But Junko has long hair, and I don’t think there were a lot of hands on me when I was at the fountain.)_

…

(Probably.)

…

…Oh look, a tree.  
That isn’t dead. He pulls out a knife.

He walks away, leaving behind the fountain and a tree which had one side completely stripped of bark and leaves.

“Ahahhh-choo!”  
SSHHUNK.  
A child’s upper body is hanging out a window, holding a few flower petals, emitting a chipmunk sneeze. The only thing stopping them from face-planting into the ground is two tiny fingers holding onto the window ledge. Their backpack flops onto the ground, next to the flowers that the child was presumably trying to pick.

The backpack’s zipper is open. Pills, plants, a lighter, a knife, some sort of metal stick…  
The flower is a sickly yellow-purple, in the shape of a sweetgum fruit. And it’s growing out of a corpse. The child has put a few flowers behind its ears.

“...Hello there, child!”

“WAHHHHH-!”  
POOMF.  
The child’s fingers slip, and they face-plant into the ground.

The first time they sleep together, it’s inside of an old mattress with a human-sized hole. Him, the child, their backpack, and the bundles of stolen clothes added together still don’t fill up the space completely. The child is curled up like a hedgehog, tiny fingers curled around their own arms. Komaeda is sitting up, rhythmically patting and rubbing circles on their back, on lookout duty. Simultaneously on lookout duty and stitch-the-child-some-new-clothes-because-winter-is-nearing duty.

“Mmmmphh…!”

There’s a tug on his sleeve, and suddenly the child’s arms are sleepily wrapped around his neck, their face buried in his chest.

“Oh-! Ah, I-I don’t think that’s a good idea, I should be-“

The child puffs their cheeks and snuggles closer. Komaeda is frozen, laying still with the child, surrounded by mattress stuffing. He must be having a fever, because it’s cold on the outside, yet he feels so warm.

Nevermind, it’s…slightly warm on the outside.

Komaeda sighs and wraps an arm around the child. _Just this once._

(It wasn’t just that once.)

  
The afternoon sky breaks like an egg into full sunset, spilling fire onto the outer edges of buildings. He had long stopped actually spending effort on trying to remember things, but it seemed to be around autumn. The child is wrapped in the large sweater Komaeda had hand-stitched for them out of clothes ripped off of corpses. It’s the only thing that can make them look at least half as skinny as Komaeda. Still, they tug on his jacket, nose and cheeks flushed a bright red, lips slightly turning from purple to blue.

After just barely escaping a group of both druggies _and_ cannibals, shelter was one of the top priorities. And the place they chose would’ve lasted a lifetime (the average lifetime nowadays isn’t very long) if they had just chosen to hole up and stay safe for a while. As it was, Komaeda

(was purposely walking towards it, even though he knows, he knows what will happen, yet he’s not doing anything to stop it, why, **why** are you doing this on _purpose-_ )

had a little job to do. For Hope.

It’s near the line where homes go from one-two story apartments to towering 20 level apartments. There’s an entire street of two story shops, but only three are still standing, and only two are accessible. The first one is a pharmacy with a pet wash on the second floor. As expected, both stores are empty except for two dead dogs laying in a puddle of blood.

“Vwheeee!”

The child had excitedly pulled out their knife and squealed at the prospect of food.

The child was gently coaxed out of the pet wash after a hurried lecture on poisonous dog meat.

The second one was a small restaurant, and the second floor was the living space for the store-owners. Actually getting to the staircase had required some maneuvering, but eventually they had made it to find: a relatively comfy bed with bloody sheets, two yellowed windows, a few books trapped beneath the rubble scattered around the room, and

A family of four, sitting still on the ground.

The pool of blood beneath them had long dried. All of them had their eyes closed, except the little boy cradled in the mother’s arms, eyes wide with an emotion that Komaeda had long been unable to identify, much less experience. The child with him crouched down and stared at the little boy with a similarly unreadable expression.

“Hmm…good work on the bed and the locks! But what if they followed us here? We’ll need an alternative exit, won’t we?”

After a great deal of mimicking and motioning (the child flinches when they realize “sounds of a starving wolf feasting while it’s being exorcised” represents the cannibals), the child frowns and paces around the room. Their fingers are tracing the stitches on their sweater. While he leaves that task to the child, he begins to rummage through their backpack for a suitable dinner.

“Puh-puh-puh-puh…”

The child makes a little popping noise with their mouth to accompany each step they take.

...

“Boink!”  
CRASH.

The window shatters into pieces as Komaeda turns around to see the child swinging a table leg, glass shards flying everywhere.

“Ahahaha…well, that sure is an escape route!”

The child giggles like he just saw Komaeda using his chain to strangle someone. Puffing his chest up, he makes happy little victory trumpet noises.

“Brpbrpt-Brpbrpbrpbrpbrpt!”  
He doesn’t mention the fact that they could have just opened it by turning the perfectly usable handle next to the window pane. Instead, he just claps and gives them a hug.

(Strangling someone with a chain makes a variety of different noises: the pretty tinkling noises of chain links, the strangled choking noises that make them sound like a dehydrated seal, the maniacal raspy laughter, their knees crumpling to the ground, the grinding of desperate fingernails against metal,

“Puh-puh-puh-puh.”

The child trots around, pulling the family of corpses by the leg and dragging them to the window. They're careful about keeping their sweater as clean as possible.

“Nnngghh-!”

They’re struggling to throw them out the window. They decide on throwing the arms and head of the father over the window ledge first. Then he pushes on the body’s rear, sending the top half flopping over.

“Need any help?”

“Ppblblt-!”

The child turns around and sticks their tongue out, stomping their foot angrily. Komaeda raises his hands in front of his chest in apology, but the child has already turned around and swung the corpse’s legs sideways. The bottom half disappears out the window.

“Fwoop!”  
THUMP.

Oh. So not only was it to get the rotting corpses outside of their new temporary home, it was also to cushion the escape path.

How resourceful!

Komaeda hums and continues to make dinner, which is onion slices, some leaves he ripped off of that tree in the park that didn’t look like a deceased raisin, tree bark strips, and two pieces of some sort of jerky. Oh, and half a cockroach, which the child is currently chewing on right now.

“Neeeee!”

Komaeda looks up and sees the child rummaging underneath the bed, and they pull out a pack of half-eaten gummy bears. After shaking out the rat skeleton from the bag, they search for the untouched treasures at the bottom of the pack. In total, there are 12 that look healthy enough to consume.

Looks like dinner also includes two gummy bears. Tonight’s dinner was already bigger than usual, but it was worth celebrating the discovery of a good shelter.

“Whop!”  
THUMP.  
“Doonk!”  
THUMP.

Two more bodies fly out the window. The last body dragged over is the little boy. The child maneuvers them into fetal position, forehead touching the ground, to be used as a stepping stool. Experimentally, they step on their makeshift stool, and is finally able to fully see out the window.

“Food's rea-“

The child immediately shoots towards him and tugs on his sleeve. At least “food” is one word they can recognize.

They’ve been walking for a while towards the bridge now. Objectively, it probably is closer to them than it was when they first started. Subjectively, the bridge hasn’t gotten any closer.

The child is keeping their hands balled inside the sleeves of the hand-made sweater (ever since Komaeda gave that to him, they haven't taken it off). They had stopped making popping noises with each step they took, which meant they were tired or they were thinking about something really hard.

He won't ask what's on their mind. He only wraps an arm around them and waits for them to "talk".

“Haahhh…Hahh-zhiii-“

Komaeda raises an eyebrow. They tug his sleeve lightly.

“Hahh-zhiiiiiiii…may?”

…? Komaeda looks at them quizzically. The child usually only ever speaks in onomatopoeia.

“HAAA-zhi-may!”

The child looks at him with wide eyes.

They stand there for a moment, staring quizzically at each other, not understanding what’s going on in the other’s brain.

“Hazhime.”

The child states it firmly, as if expecting a response, as if that’s supposed to mean something.

“…Oh! Ahahaha, that’s not my name. But you can call me that if you’d li-”

“Hajime!”

“…I-Is, is that your name?”

The child is disgruntled about something, probably because the lilt at the end of the sentence indicated that he was asking a question.

Their hands poke out the sleeve holes, and they point at his chest. “Nagi.”  
_You._  
They pull their eyelids down over their eyes and mimic snoring.  
_Sleep._  
They point at his lips.  
_Speak._  
“Hajime.”  
_Hajime._

_…So, I was sleep-talking?_

“Hmmm…although that is a very common name, I’ve never met anyone called that.”

The child is still staring. Komaeda kisses their forehead and motions for them to move along.

“At least, I don’t think I have.”

He starts back towards the bridge, trusting the child to follow after him. After a few beats of silence-

“Puh-puh-puh-puh.” They latch onto his sleeve again.

And before he knows it, the grip on his sleeve disappears, and the child is torn away from him.

“HHng-GAHHH! _Nagiii-!_ ”

The child is screaming and wailing for help, crying out his name as tears stream down his face. They’re thrashing around, failing to kick at Monaca. Kids with Monokuma masks and blue and white uniforms hold their frail, struggling limbs down, paper-thin skin wrapped around malnourished bones.

“Nag- _giiii-_ _ **haahh-**_ ” They’re starting to sob uncontrollably, hiccupping out his name like their life depended on it, watery eyes screaming _please, please, help-_

“Don’t you even think about trying to stop it!” Monaca yanks on his chain _hard_. “You’re our servant from now on!”

And when the others aren’t paying enough attention, the wretched girl whispers: “Besides, you’ve gotta have a little despair before you can get your precious _hope,_ right?”

He can’t move, unable to look away as the child writhes and jerks their head away from the Mask, _please, Nagito, come save me-_

“Stop fighting!” The red-haired one snaps. “This is for your own good!”

_Nagito please, I love you, **save me-**_

Another Monokuma kid grabs the sides of the child’s head and slams it onto the ground. They let out a broken cry of pain, and the Mask is shoved onto their tear-streaked face-

Immediately, all the kids spring back, as the child convulses and shudders on the ground, muffled whimpers leaking out the cracks of the Mask, squirming and desperately trying to reach for Komaeda

but their movements grow more sluggish by the minute, ragged breaths the only sounds coming from their mouth, fingertips offering one last twitch in his direction,

And they lose the battle over their mind, going limp on the ground.

He can barely hear the high-pitched cheers and giggles ringing around him. The Monokuma kids surround the child again, one holding a uniform.

They pick them up, and the child slumps in the kids' arms like a rag-doll, an empty sack of skin-

“Get them changed.”

And the sweater he so carefully stitched for them is ripped off.

**Author's Note:**

> time to write my homework:D
> 
> btw, should i add a second chapter?


End file.
